Tuesday, April 28, 2009

American Museums Updated

So far, in the United States, there are sixty-two (62) museums in twenty-one (21) states that have been identified as having collections of Himalayan & Tibetan style art. It is very likely that there are a number of other museums out there not yet identified. Twenty (20) of these museums with images from their collections are currently represented on the Himalayan Art Resources (HAR) website. The HAR staff are continuing to contact and work with other museums in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia, to encourage their participation in this global cultural endeavor.

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Newsletter: February - April 2009

The Newsletter is out and can be found on the Home Page under New On the Site.

As of February 2009 the HAR staff have installed new office computers and a new fully raided storage and back-up system for all in-house work. The storage and back-up system has been a long time coming. It is finally here and a welcomed improvement. The website itself has always been fully backed up by our internet service provider.

Since October of 2008 until now 48 Blog entries have been added to the site; announcing new additions, features, collections, exhibitions and links. Whenever new information or content is uploaded to the blog it is also added to the HAR database as a backup pre-caution. The Testimonial Page is growing slowly and on February 3rd, 2009, a second call for testimonials was sent out to all academics, scholars and educators who use the site. Please send testimonials to info@himalayanart.org. We are especially interested to hear from those educators that use the site in classroom settings.

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Monday, April 20, 2009

Receiving E-mail Blog Updates

To receive e-mail updates for all postings to the HAR Blog - sign up for Google Alerts and enter "Himalayan Art Resources" with quotation marks. We have tested this and it works although it sometimes takes up to five days for the Google bots to re-visit blog sites.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Patron and Painter

Patron and Painter
Rubin Museum of Art, New York
February 6, 2009 - August 17, 2009


Much like religious princes, the Karmapas, heads of the Karma Kagyu, one of Tibet's principal schools of Buddhism, traveled for centuries in large monastic tent encampments. These courts, which included portable temples, a community of monks, and skilled artists and artisans, produced their own distinctive painting style, known as the "Encampment style" (Gardri). The painter Namkha Tashi founded the style in the court of the Ninth Karmapa (1555-1603) in Central Tibet. He looked to Indian figural models and placed them in landscapes inspired heavily by the works of Chinese court painters.

Most of what we know of this painting tradition belongs to its eighteenth-century revival fostered by the great scholar-painter Situ Panchen (1700-1774) in Kham Province, Eastern Tibet, with its new artistic center at his monastic seat, Palpung. Even more important to the history of Tibetan art than Situ Panchen's role as a painter is his role as a patron and designer of paintings, many of which continue to be copied to this day. For the first time anywhere, this exhibition traces the career and artistic legacy of one of the great patrons and artists in Tibetan history. (From the RMA website).

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Stable as a Mountain

Stable as a Mountain
Rubin Museum of Art, New York
March 13, 2009 - July 13, 2009


Portraiture is one of the most powerful and significant expressions of figurative art, and in the Himalayas the subjects of religious portraits are exclusively religious teachers, or gurus. By preserving the physical appearance of a guru, an icon is produced that can charismatically substitute for the teacher in his physical absence. As such these portraits often embody the teachings of the guru and the traits of the enlightened mind. (From RMA website).

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Toward Enlightenment: The Sacred Art of Tibet & Universe of a Deity: A Tibetan Sand Mandala

Toward Enlightenment: The Sacred Art of Tibet & Universe of a Deity: A Tibetan Sand Mandala
University Art Museum, UC Santa Barbara
April 1, 2009 – June 14, 2009

In conjunction with the historic fourth visit to UC Santa Barbara by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in April, the University Art Museum announces an exclusive presentation of historic and living art of the Himalayas. Toward Enlightenment: The Sacred Art of Tibet prime examples of Tibetan paintings from the 14th to 19th centuries. The exhibition highlights the multi-level functioning of the art and its themes of transformation of the profound into the worldly with a strong emphasis on depictions of teaching. These paintings echo the purity and precision of visionary buddhas, bodhisattvas, archetypal deities, lama portraits, and protectors. (From UAM UCSB website).

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The Creatures of the Rain Rivers, Cloud Lakes

The Creatures of the Rain Rivers, Cloud Lakes: Newars Saw Them, So Did Ancient India, by Gautama V. Vajracharya.

"The magnificent works of the Newar artists and architects of the Kathmandu valley include not only paintings, sculptures, residential houses, public building and royal palaces but also water fountains comfortably positioned in public places near the residential area or inside the palaces."

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Marvels of the Malla Period

Marvels of the Malla Period: A Nepalese Renaissance 1200-1603.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art.
December 22, 2007 – June 1, 2008.

In this exhibition, the Philadelphia Museum presents masterpieces from its own outstanding collection of rarely seen Malla Period art. Vibrant Buddhist ritual paintings burst with energy, a marvelous goddess coyly dances, and golden Hindu and Buddhist sculptures regally invite adoration. From INTRODUCTION.

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